JavaScript syntax
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Objects
For convenience, types are normally subdivided into primitives and objects. Objects are entities that have an identity (they are only equal to themselves) and that map property names to values ("slots" in prototype-based programming terminology). Objects may be thought of as associative arrays or hashes, and are often implemented using these data structures. However, objects have additional features, such as a prototype chain, which ordinary associative arrays do not have.
JavaScript has several kinds of built-in objects, namely Array, Boolean, Date, Function, Math, Number, Object, RegExp and String. Other objects are "host objects", defined not by the language, but by the runtime environment. For example, in a browser, typical host objects belong to the DOM (window, form, links, etc.).
Creating objects
Objects can be created using a constructor or an object literal. The constructor can use either a built-in Object function or a custom function. It is a convention that constructor functions are given a name that starts with a capital letter:
// Constructor
const anObject = new Object();
// Object literal
const objectA = {};
const objectA2 = {}; // A != A2, {}s create new objects as copies.
const objectB = {index1: 'value 1', index2: 'value 2'};
// Custom constructor (see below)
Object literals and array literals allow one to easily create flexible data structures:
const myStructure = {
name: {
first: "Mel",
last: "Smith"
},
age: 33,
hobbies: ["chess", "jogging"]
};
This is the basis for JSON, which is a simple notation that uses JavaScript-like syntax for data exchange.
Methods
A method is simply a function that has been assigned to a property name of an object. Unlike many object-oriented languages, there is no distinction between a function definition and a method definition in object-related JavaScript. Rather, the distinction occurs during function calling; a function can be called as a method.
When called as a method, the standard local variable this is just automatically set to the object instance to the left of the ".". (There are also call and apply methods that can set this explicitly—some packages such as jQuery do unusual things with this.)
In the example below, Foo is being used as a constructor. There is nothing special about a constructor - it is just a plain function that initializes an object. When used with the new keyword, as is the norm, this is set to a newly created blank object.
Note that in the example below, Foo is simply assigning values to slots, some of which are functions. Thus it can assign different functions to different instances. There is no prototyping in this example.
function px() { return this.prefix + "X"; }
function Foo(yz) {
this.prefix = "a-";
if (yz > 0) {
this.pyz = function() { return this.prefix + "Y"; };
} else {
this.pyz = function() { return this.prefix + "Z"; };
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